“Get off!”
“Tsssshhhh.” He let out a soft hiss of sound, giving me a firm, strong shake. It reminded me of how my father would grab Pepper by the scruff when the cat swatted at him. It wasn’t a violent gesture; it was supposed to be calming. Now I was the animal. I gritted my teeth.
“There,” Van said. “There.”
Koen came running up to us. He stumbled over a few gnarled roots, reaching out to steady himself on a branch. Then he stopped, watching me fearfully. At the sight of Koen, I felt Van’s grip loosen for just a moment. That was my chance. I squirmed out from his strong arms.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. Part of me wanted to strike out, to come at them all furious teeth and nails. I was better than that, but just barely. I struck a nearby tree trunk with both fists instead. The bark burned the heels of my hands. “What are you doing? I was going to marry you!”
Koen didn’t look at me when he answered. He didn’t dare. His voice was no more than a whisper. “We weren’t doing anything. You still can.”
I let out a howl. Collapsing on the cold ground, I drew my knees to my chest, braying, my hands pulled up over my head. Koen called my name. But then Van said: “Let her cry it out.” I heard the soft crunch of leaves as he stepped over me to get to Koen.
I don’t know how long I rocked myself on my heels, crying into my arm. It seemed to take a lifetime for my breath to slow—I kept seeing it in my mind’s eye, how their hips had been pressed together, how Van had wrenched his hungry mouth away from Koen’s only at the sight of me. Maybe I should have realized it a long time ago. The silence in the library. The odd friendship between the talmid clock keeper and the young librarian. But I hadn’t.
“Faygeleh,” I said, the word bursting breathlessly past my lips. That must have been what my father had meant all those weeks ago when he’d warned me of rumors about Van. Abba didn’t know anything about the Children of Abel—but somehow he’d known about this, about the curve of Van’s hip as it pressed to Koen’s.
Men didn’t love men. Sure, some boys had flings with one another. In school we called them “faygeleh,” a word that meant “little bird.” But that was something you gave up when you were grown so that you could be a good husband, a father.
It made sense. It made so much sense.
Sniffling, I lifted my head; they both watched me. Koen clutched Van’s hand in his. I remembered the cool, loose pressure of his fingers around my fingers and fought the urge to look away.
“You love him,” I said. It wasn’t a question, not really, and Koen answered more quickly than I liked.
“Yes.” He looked relieved to say it. But then he added: “I can learn to love you, too, though. Like Van loves Nina. I still want to marry you.”
Slowly, painfully, I pulled myself to my feet. When I answered him, my voice cracked.
“Why?”
I saw something pass between them—unspoken words in a language I wasn’t privileged enough to speak. Van shrugged; Koen turned to me again.
“Because it’s my duty. Because it’s a mitzvah. Because . . . because your dad asked me to. On the first day of work. He went on and on about how much he worries about you. And you know, he’s right. I think . . . I think you need someone to take care of you. And I can do that. I love Van, but I can love you, too.”
“You’ll never love me like you love him.” The words hung between us, as ugly and as undeniable as a tumor. And we all knew it was true. He would never kiss me. Not like he’d kissed Van. I saw the librarian squeeze Koen’s hand, a tiny gesture not meant for me.
“And what about Nina?” I demanded of Van. “Do you love her?”
“I love them both.” There was no hesitation there. “It wasn’t easy to tell Nina about falling in love with Koen. It hasn’t been easy for her to share me. And it hasn’t been easy hiding it either. But life wouldn’t be worth a thing if I couldn’t have both of them.”
“Falling in love with him,” I echoed. The words felt hollow. “That’s the thing, though, isn’t it? You’ll take care of me, Koen. But you’ll never fall in love with me. You’ll never be my bashert.”
“There are different kinds of love,” Koen declared. “And it’s not like we have to love each other that way to get married. It’s not like my parents do.”
“But I want . . .,” I began. Koen stared at me but didn’t speak. A lump rose in my throat. I stumbled toward the main path, through the growing shadows of dusk.
“Terra,” Koen called as I walked by. He tried to reach his hand out, but Van warned him back.
“Don’t,” he said, and I was grateful for that. Still, I stopped just a few meters beyond them. They were still holding hands as they watched me. They’d never stopped.
“I have a question,” I said. Koen looked afraid of what I might say—but he nodded anyhow.
“Sure.”
“I wanted to ask you about the Children of Abel. I guess—I guess this is why you joined, isn’t it? Not because of the vocation system or the Council. But because . . . you’d marry him if you could, right? He’s . . . he’s your destiny?”
As their gazes met, I saw Koen’s soften. He didn’t look at me. That was as good as a confirmation.
A million arguments swam through my mind. A man couldn’t be another man’s bashert. They weren’t even supposed to touch one another, not like that, let alone fall in love. But looking at the two of them standing there with their fingers intertwined, I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Because they stood side by side, leaning into each other. I had the unnerving feeling that everything I’d ever been taught about love was a lie.
“I thought so,” I muttered, and with that, I turned through the dimming woods and began the long walk home.
18
I should have put the pieces together about Koen and Van. The way Koen pulled away from me when I leaned into him as we walked. The way his hand felt in mine, slack, no different from how it had felt when I’d held my brother’s hand as a little girl. The way Van had looked when Koen had defended me—like he could have cried, like his heart was breaking.
But I hadn’t. I thought I was perceptive, but I wasn’t. I thought I was smart, but I definitely wasn’t that, either. I had missed so many clues. Not just about Koen. About everything.
That night I came home to a dark house, hung my coat on the hook, and flicked on the galley light. From upstairs I heard Pepper’s cries—long, mournful howls.
“Couldn’t even feed the cat, huh, Abba?” I muttered to myself, and went to the icebox to get Pepper his supper. As I peeled away the wax paper that covered his food, a vision flashed inside my mind. Van’s hands on Koen’s hips. I forced it away with a shudder and set Pepper’s supper on the ground.
“Pepper!” I called, but he didn’t come running. There was a pause and then another low moan from upstairs, then a pause, a shuffle, and another cry. I felt my heart sink down into my stomach. I knew that something was wrong even then, but I did my best to ignore it.
“Pepper? Did I lock you in my room this morning? I hope you didn’t piss on my bed.” I forced a laugh at my own joke. But I took the stairs slowly, one at a time.
I reached the landing. Never before had our hallway seemed so long or dark; never had the way the shadows stretched across the scuffed metal floor seemed so sinister. There was light coming from under the door to my father’s room—a long, thin vein of white. A flicker of shadows passed through it, and then I heard another yowl.
“Pepper?”
My hand was cold when I set it against the door. Colder than Koen’s hand. Colder than ice. The heavy wood swung open under my palm. Pepper darted out before I could stop him. I watched his tail disappear in the halo of light that surrounded the stairs.
Then I turned to my father’s room and brought my hands up to my mouth.
“Oh, no,” I breathed. “Abba, no.”
My father’s bed was crisply made, not a single wrinkle showing, the sheets pulled taut under the m
attress. His uniform had been left folded atop the coverlet. In the low buzzing light of his bedside lamp, strange shadows loomed. It took my eyes a minute to adjust—took my brain a minute too—to take in what was right in front of me.
My father had laced rope through the high, dusty rafters. He must have slipped it around his throat, climbed onto his desk chair, then kicked the chair down. My mind noted all of the little details—how his hands, blue and slack, sat against his thighs, how his leather shoes just almost touched the floor. I noted all of this dispassionately. It was like there was a hiccup in my brain.
It didn’t hit me until I went to him and touched his ice-cold fingers. His body spun on the rope, and I saw his face. The open, hazy eyes met mine.
For the second time that night, I screamed.
• • •
It’s hard to talk about what happened next. It’s almost like it happened to someone else. All that screaming. Mar Schneider must have heard it. All those years when my father and I had fought, no one had done a thing. But that night, while my hands were still up over my head, my throat raw and stinging, the knocking came. I must have stumbled to my feet. I must have staggered down the stairs. But all I remember was how I tried my hardest not to look at the body that swung from the ceiling.
A guard stood on the front steps. I only stared at him, white-faced. Noise complaint, he said. Would have to keep our voices down.
That’s when everything left me, all feeling, all fear.
“He’s upstairs,” I said, and collapsed just outside the front door. The guard streamed past me, a rush of blue wool and boots.
After that, more guards. Pepper tried to slip outside, and some neighbor caught him, then held him, staring at me. Speaking to me, but I didn’t hear him. The men were in and out with their boots and their knives.
Koen came. Alone. Without Van. I don’t know why. It was too late to change anything.
“I heard,” he said, taking Pepper from my neighbor.
I didn’t say anything. I was listening to the heavy footsteps on the stairwell. Then I was jostled. A line of guards streamed out, holding my father’s cloth-enveloped body.
The crowd that had gathered went silent. They each raised a pair of fingers to their hearts—a salute. But I didn’t do anything. And neither did Koen.
He just stood there, looking pale and afraid as he clutched my cat to his chest. Eventually the crowd thinned. My father’s ghostly figure had faded down the boulevard by then, disappearing into the darkness.
“Terra,” Koen said at last, stepping close.
When I finally answered, I could taste blood in my throat.
“That bastard!” I said. “That selfish bastard! He left me here! That bastard!”
Koen let out a thin sigh. He carried my cat up the front step and left him inside my empty house. Then he leaned out the open doorway.
“Come on inside,” he said. “We have to get ready for the funeral.”
I picked myself up.
“He left me here. That bastard!” I said again, but weaker this time as Koen closed the door behind me.
19
Down in the pasture funeral goers drifted like ghosts, looking gauzy and grave in their white cotton. They held hands. They sang. Some of them looked down at the wrapped body of my father and wondered why anyone would do such a thing. Perhaps a few of them understood. But they all cast down fistfuls of soil, frigid and dry from the frost, and then tried to stop themselves from wiping their palms against their trousers.
Or at least I assume that’s what happened. I didn’t see it.
Instead I lay on the cedar planks on the floor of the clock tower, staring up into the rafters as Koen rang the bells. The sound sank deep into my body, reverberating in my rib cage, making my molars vibrate. It almost hurt. But at least I felt something.
Gone, was all I thought. My father is gone. I will never see my father again.
But the air here smelled fragrant with the memory of him. I could remember sick days spent in the tower when he showed me the gears and cogs, when I sat in his lap, burying my face in the heavy corduroy of his uniform. Back then, when our faces were lit up amber from the dials, we were happy. I wasn’t afraid of him yet. I never rolled my eyes or bit the inside of my cheeks to stop myself from complaining. No. Back then I thought my father was the smartest man on the whole ship.
But now he was gone. Gone, gone, gone.
Koen stopped ringing the bells. From the floor I watched as he plucked splinters of rope from his work-reddened palms. He was wearing his uniform. Abba’s clothes, I thought, the lump in my throat thickening. But they fit him all wrong. The coat was both too loose and too short. The cuffs hardly covered his long arms.
He walked to the face of the big clock and bent at the waist. I watched as he peered out of the translucent amber glass.
“They’re setting him in the ground now,” he said, and then he turned his gaze to me. “Are you sure you don’t want to go say good-bye?”
I didn’t answer. I was sprawled there on the floor, my hands up near my head. When Koen put his palms on his knees, focusing his gaze on me, pressing for an answer, I only looked away.
“Okay. Okay,” he said.
I don’t know how long we stayed there, Koen leaning against the control panel, silent, and me on the floor. The words kept ringing through my mind, as sure as any bell.
Gone. Gone. My father is gone.
Finally I put my hands against the boards, felt the cold of the dusty wood beneath my fingers, and pushed myself up. When I stood, it was on uncertain feet. I staggered for a moment, put a hand to my head. My hair was a tangled mess beneath my hand, but I patted it down.
“Terra,” Koen said. He was watching me, afraid I was going to fall. “You can come to my house if you want. You know . . .” He hesitated. Something in his expression told me that he doubted himself. And when he spoke, I knew that he was right to. “I’d still have you as my wife. It’s . . . it’s what he wanted, isn’t it? To make sure you have someone to take care of you. I’ll take care of you.”
I stared at him. Once, I would have wanted nothing more than to hear those words, to know that Koen still wanted me to be a part of his life. But something had changed for me in the forest.
“Why?” I said at last. “Why are you so hung up on this marriage thing? You don’t even want me.”
He looked down at his trimmed nails, at the broad fingers that clutched at one another in front of his stomach. In a low tone he said, “I just want to be normal.”
My gut gave a lurch. It was too much for me then—the tears that racked the new clock keeper’s voice, the ones that seemed to tighten my own throat but still wouldn’t come. With a slow shake of my head, I staggered down the stairs. I took them one at a time, the rhythm plodding inside me.
Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.
Koen followed. He kept his distance, but I could hear his feet on the steps behind me.
Gone. Gone.
We reached the open air. I sucked it in, letting the cold burn my lungs, letting the constant wind that cycled through the dome from fore to aft strike my face. I didn’t even bother to button my coat against it.
As we stepped into the pasture, I felt what must have been a thousand eyes turn to me. All those Asherati in their funerary whites. We were the only ones dressed in color. I was still in my work clothes. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to change. I wore my brown trousers, the hems torn around my heels, and one of Momma’s old unraveling sweaters, which was a deep pine green. Koen was in his clock keeper’s clothes. Abba’s clothes. Gone. Gone. I guess we attracted attention. We stepped out across the field.
As I moved through the crowd, I kept my head high. People murmured their consolations, but I didn’t look at anyone long enough to know who spoke to me or what they said. I didn’t stop when they began to reach out, touching their hands to my shoulders. I walked right through them.
“Terra!”
Koen’s voice reached out to
me from somewhere in the thick of the crowd. He must have gotten lost in it. He must have lost me. I didn’t stop. People put their hands on my shoulders, my arms.
It was Captain Wolff who halted my progress across the field.
One moment I was marching forward. The next, the woman was in front of me, her silver hair sparkling in the artificial moonlight.
“Terra,” she said, gripping my hands in her hands. Inside I recoiled. I wanted to pull away, to snatch my hands back. But instead they just lay limply in her grasp. “The Council would like to extend to you their deepest apologies at the losses you’ve faced. Please feel free to come to me if you need anything.”
I tried to imagine it—pounding on Captain Wolff’s door in the middle of the night, crying on her shoulder as if she were my mother. Giving her every opportunity to plunge a knife into my back. I managed only a coarse syllable in answer—“Yeh”—and drew my hands away. Balling them into fists, as if the warm touch of my own palms would obliterate the sensation of Captain Wolff’s fingers, I stumbled away, looking only once over my shoulder to the crowd that watched me.
That’s when I spotted Silvan. He was standing off to the side, alone again, unguarded. With his arms crossed over his broad, white-clad chest, he gazed out into the foggy evening. Then he turned and looked over his shoulder at me. He squinted at me like he was trying to figure me out.
I stuffed my hands into my pockets again and hustled away.
My brother and Hannah managed to find me before I reached the pasture gate. Hannah clutched the baby to her chest. Even Alyana was dressed in white—a long gown of eyelet lace that looked clean against her peachy skin. Ronen grabbed me by the shoulder. I was surprised by the lines that deepened his features. Though he was barely twenty, he looked so old. And very much like my father.
Who is gone. Gone.
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